Three arrested over killing of Afghan woman

December 13, 2012 - 7:20:04 am

KABUL: Three suspects have been arrested and another three are on the run over the killing of an Afghan woman earlier this month, the government announced Tuesday.

Anisa, aged between 18 and 22 according to sources, was shot dead on December 1 as she left the family home to go to school in Kapisa province northeast of Kabul, provincial police chief Abdul Hamid Erkin said.

Provincial governor Mehrabuddin Safi had rejected this version of events during a news conference on Saturday, saying the victim, aged 35, was caught in an exchange of gunfire.

“The investigation shows that six persons were involved in the murder: three of them are detained and are questioned. Three more are still at large. Security forces are on their way to arrest them,” a government statement said.

Afghan users of social media sites Facebook and Twitter had mobilised to pressure the government to investigate the case, suggesting the woman had been killed by hardline Taliban Islamists because of her health work or because she was going to school.

They compared her death to the shooting in October of Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old Pakistani student who achieved international fame for campaigning for girls’ education. Malala is now being treated in Britain.

The Taliban were notorious for their suppression of women’s rights during their rule from 1996 to 2001, when they were overthrown by a US-led invasion.

No Swiss reply so far on Zardari case

ISLAMABAD: The Swiss authorities had so far not responded to the letter sent to them by the Pakistani government about reopening of the graft case against President Asif Ali Zardari on the order of the Supreme Court, Pakistan’s Federal Law Minister Farooq H Naek said yesterday.

Naek said that no case existed against Zardari in Switzerland at all and the SGS case was only at the investigation stage.

After completion of investigation by a judge, he said, the Swiss attorney general had announced in Aug 2008 that no money laundering case was there and if anyone had objection to his ruling, he could file an appeal within 10 days.

He said the Swiss attorney general had also mentioned the letter that had been sent by the former attorney general Malik Abdul Qayyum seeking closure of the investigation after promulgation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance. The ordinance was later declared null and void by the Supreme Court.

He said the National Accountability Bureau had also cleared Zardari in the two corruption cases he was facing in the country, because there was no evidence against him.